In Vino Veritas
by singsongsung
Summary: Lucas/Peyton. A completely different take on the infamous "I hate you" scene, based on the promo rather than the episode.


_In Vino Veritas_

**A/N:** A oneshot based on the misleading promo for 5x17, another way the "I hate you" scene could have gone. I stole dialogue from several episodes, but it's all just from memory, not re-watching, so I hope you're fine with just going with whatever I could remember. The title is defined within the story; it's just something that my philosophy teacher said to us in class the other day that reminded me of Mia's advice to Peyton in 5x17. It's pretty sad that I connected the quotation to One Tree Hill rather than the ethical dilemma we were discussing…but hey, what can I say; I'm addicted to this show at the moment. Read and review, please.

Peyton shut the door to Red Bedroom Records, enclosing Mia in the recording studio, and made her way down the stairs, to Tric. She was tired. Her feet hurt, but the majority of her exhaustion stemmed from emotion rather than anything physical. It'd been a long day. A long week. Long, tiring months. If she were to be honest with herself, she knew that the last three years of her life had been long, and hard.

Lately she was doing her best to keep it together. Brooke was already madly in love with baby Angie, who was thankfully on the road to full recovery, her big brown eyes wide and alert again. It was now Brooke rather than the baby that Peyton was worried about; Angie had to go home soon, and Peyton knew she'd have to be there for her best friend, who was madly in love with that little girl. She didn't mind – she and Brooke had always been there for each other, always held each other up. It was just that lately Brooke had been taking such good care of her. Peyton knew it was high time to return to favour, but she'd just gotten so used to Brooke looking out for her. Brooke's attentions were currently everywhere else: Victoria, Clothes over Bro's, Millie, Angie, Rachel, Owen, Chase, Lucas, Jamie, Nathan and Haley and the crazy nanny…and while all of those people and things were important, it just made Peyton feel as alone as she knew she was. It was like Mia's now-famous single: she was only fooling herself.

Peyton had Mia, but the eighteen-year-old was branching out, making her mark, growing more and more independent. Peyton supported her, and was extremely proud of her, but as Mia shrugged that evening, assuring her that she could make it on her own, Peyton didn't feel needed anymore.

She didn't want to go home. Brooke wouldn't be there, she was at the hospital with Angie. Peyton wanted nothing less than to go home to an empty house and find herself drawn to the copious amounts of alcohol Brooke could easily afford…and the copy of Lucas' manuscript that was still lying on her bed.

She still loved Lucas, of course she did. She hated lying in bed at night, thinking of him and every single thing that could have been, the way her heart used to swell when he was lying next to her, his arms wrapped securely around her. She hated the pillow that lay bare next to hers, the pillow that she'd always thought would remain his.

It had hurt like hell, it had hurt so _much_ to say that she would let go of him, but she had loved him enough to do it, and she had told him so. She'd done it all. She'd said her goodbye to him, dashing out of the high school gymnasium that housed way too many memories before she could fully break down. She ignored the classic look of jealously she'd seen on his face when Chase had kissed her at his pre-wedding bash. She cried by herself in bed early in the morning on the day of his wedding, putting on a pretty dress and makeup before she went out to face the world. She didn't stand up in the middle of the ceremony and beg him not to choose someone who wasn't her, she sat there and clutched Brooke's hand and breathed heavily but didn't cry. And when Lindsay called him on it all, their history and their undeniable attraction, before running down the aisle, she hadn't cheered.

She felt bad. For herself, for Lindsay, and for Lucas. She hated herself for being the cause of so much grief in his life, but she couldn't deny that she loved him. After Lindsay left him, all her big gestures, all of her grace…it had seemed like such a waste, like maybe she should have just kissed him senseless and taken him back. But that wasn't what Lucas wanted. And in truth, she was so in love with him that all she really wanted at this point was _his_ happiness. She hadn't wanted any of the drama for him, she _hadn't_.

Peyton wanted Lucas, but if she couldn't have him, she wasn't going to sit back and watch him mope around. She sought out Lindsay at Jamie's birthday party, she went to New York, she tried to make it right for Lucas with the girl he insisted he loved. Lindsay looked at her like she was crazy, and Peyton saw so many things running through the eyes of the woman she honestly did like, and whose life she'd sort of wrecked. Lindsay looked at her as though she was crazy, as though she didn't understand why Peyton was with her, here in New York, instead of back in Tree Hill living the dream with the man they both loved. She'd handed over the manuscript wearily, insisting that it was _Peyton_ who had to make the decisions here.

She wished with all her heart that she had never opened that manuscript, never lost herself in the story, because it _did_ read just like his previous book had, a poetic love letter with a plot stuck into it…a poetic, action-filled love letter to _her_. All of the faith and longing, the aching and the belief within those pages – it was exactly what was in Peyton's heart.

Haley, despite all her own family drama, had taken the time to hover over Peyton protectively, and kept dropping hints about the very same manuscript, saying things like _how Lucas truly feels_ and _sometimes he just works really hard to protect his heart_ and _sometimes people write what they can't say aloud _and even _Luke used to talk about you when we were thirteen, did he ever tell you that?_ Peyton appreciated her friend's concern, but they were just more words she didn't need. More things to give her faith in a love that Lucas insisted had ended long ago.

Lucas was saying things that completely contradicted what everyone else seemed to believe. He gave her talks about not blaming her, about loving Lindsay, about how he'd get his girl back. And Peyton tried to smile, tried to be happy for him, tried to wish him his happiness, tried to let him go.

Her feet fell heavily as she walked down the stairs, and the fabric of her dress brushed against her legs slowly as she took each step. Her skin felt particularly sensitive, almost feverish, but nothing was wrong with her, she knew that. Nothing physical, at least._ Heartsick_ was becoming a better and better term to describe her state of being.

When she entered Tric, her eyes fell upon the one person who occupied her thoughts most of the time. "Lucas?" she breathed quietly, a question directed to no one as she studied the man slumped at the bar. Her eyes filled with tears that she hastily blinked back. She'd never wished this on him. It wasn't the way she'd ever wanted things to turn out.

She walked over to him quickly, gently resting a hand on his shoulder, thinking of all the times she'd bitten and kissed and stroked and just _touched_ the skin covered by his shirt. "Luke…hey, Luke," she said, raising her soft voice a bit in order to get his attention.

He started, his body jarring back a bit, and when he looked at her it was with his saddest face, full of confusion and misery. She resisted the automatic urge to kiss it all better. "Hey…c'mon," she instructed him gently, hooking his arm over her shoulder. His clumsy hand grazed her breast for a second and she bit her lip. This was really the last thing she needed. She pulled him up a little, helping him support more of his own weight, and resisted a smirk with amusement, a major contrast to the memory-induced heartbreak she'd been feeling seconds ago. "Use your feet, Lucas," she told him as she carefully helped him stumble out of Tric, guiding him down the stairs cautiously.

Peyton sat him in the passenger seat of her car, the cause of so much damn controversy, and crouched down next to him, running her fingers lightly over his face. "How much did you drink?"

"A lot," he mumbled, looking at her sadly, squinting as he tried to focus on her face. "Yeah…lots."

"You've got quite the hairdo going on," she commented gently, eyeing his mini-mohawk and biting back a smile.

"Huh?"

The smallest giggle escaped her lips. "Never mind," she soothed. "What's going on, ba –" She froze before the affectionate term could fully escape her lips, standing up quickly. It was just all so natural with him, so _right_, so easy to forget the hell that they'd been through. Staring at the wasted man sitting before her, she remembered the time he'd saved her from that party at Duke, and thought about how it had come full circle, in a way. She just wished that their love could have taken the same path, one that came back to that night in that hotel room, where she should have told him yes.

She just wished that they had chosen the right paths.

"What?" Lucas asked in confusion, a request for clarification of the question she never finished; he was completely unaware of her inner struggle.

She took a shaky breath. "What's going on?" she repeated.

"Lindsay's seeing someone," he slurred, leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes.

_Peyton…I have someone. I'm…with someone._

Never in a million years would she have wished that devastation on him. Swallowing hard, she replied, "I'm sorry, Lucas. I never wanted this. You don't deserve it."

"I kind of do," he muttered, his words quiet and dismal.

"Okay," she whispered in response, having no wish to delve into _that_ particular sentence. "Let's get you home, huh?" she asked rhetorically, closing the door.

The drive back to his house was tense with silence. Lucas kept his eyes closed and his jaw clenched, and Peyton wondered if he was resisting the urge to hurl. She'd flip if he got her car messy, but then again, she would forgive him. Somehow, she could always forgive him.

She glanced over to him every three seconds, thinking that it would be good if he would talk. Maybe this was the way to clear the air. It was like Mia had said…get Lucas drunk, and maybe he would finally tell the truth.

Part of her was afraid of what he would say, afraid that the words that left his lips would be different from the ones that had flowed from his fingers to create the tragic story that was some sort of summary of their love. Another part of her wanted him to lay the honest-to-god truth out there, so that if he didn't love her, she could try to move on. She could let Brooke set her up with some awesome guy who would love her and propose to her and dote on her and support her and be the father of her children but never mean to her quite was Lucas had.

She pulled her car into his driveway and got out, circling it so that she could haul him out of the passenger seat. He was half passed out, so she had to rummage in his front pocket for his keys. He was too far gone to notice any awkwardness, but she definitely did – she could feel the heat in her cheeks. "Come on, big guy," she told him as she helped him out, trying to sound as neutral and as friendly as possible. Supporting him with one arm, she unlocked his door, the one that lead directly to his bedroom, and let it swing open.

She stared into the house for a moment. How many important moments had she experienced in one of the doorways of Lucas Scott's house? The moment in junior year when she confessed her mistake and saw him with Brooke. The moment weeks ago when she'd shown up, hoping once again for a revival of their relationship, only to discover that he had proposed to Lindsay.

And then there were all the moments that had belonged solely to her. Stumbling through his bedroom door, her fingers struggling with the buttons of his shirt while his hands gripped her hips. Following his mother through the front door as Lucas lugged bags and a car seat behind them, his new baby sister nestled safely in her arms while she wondered if she'd experience this same moment in the future, and if the baby would look up at her with Lucas' eyes and her own smile. Giggling as she slipped away after a night of just-as-friends fun. Tiptoeing through the doorway, looking for the shelter and the comfort she could find only with Lucas after Psycho Derek's attack. Whispering _I love you_ against his lips as the sun peeked into the sky over her shoulder, just before running back to her own apartment before Brooke could discover that she'd snuck off again at midnight.

Peyton helped him stumble into the room and left him standing there for a moment. He was past the point of helping himself; whether from drunkenness or misery she didn't know, but either way she knew she'd have to take care of him, so she rummaged through his drawers for clothes. She would help him into bed, and he wouldn't even remember it the next day, and there would be no extra awkwardness between the two of them. That was how it was going to be.

And then her hand fell onto a velvety black box that she knew all too well, a box that she'd held in her hands as her mind raced into overdrive, wondering if they were really ready for this, no matter how much she wanted to open it up. She gripped the drawer, staring at it. Her ring, Lindsay's ring…she wondered if it was in there again. She wondered who it had really belonged to.

She shook off the thought, grabbing a t-shirt and a pair of plaid pyjama pants. "Let's get you into bed, okay?" she asked Lucas softly, setting down the PJs at the foot of his bed and reaching out to undo the first button of his shirt, unable to keep her fingers from trembling a bit. It was okay. They could do this.

It was then that he lost his footing, having given up on holding himself together, and together they fell back onto the bed, Peyton on top of him.

There she was, straddling Lucas Scott and gripping the collar of his shirt for support, breathing heavily while he gazed up at her, eyes at half mast. "Okay," she repeated out loud, "We can do this."

As she worked at the buttons on his shirt, his hand came up, gently stroking her back. Maybe it was out of instinct, something automatic, but it still made her shiver. That simple gesture was intimately protective, and kind, and…just too much. Her breathing grew shallower as she eyed him warily, trying to ignore the evidence of his arousal she could feel through the thin fabric of the dress she'd thrown on that morning without even expecting to run into the boy she loved that day.

_He's too drunk for…that_, she told herself firmly. _He has to be_.

But he wasn't, and deep down she knew that. It was more sadness than alcohol, and she knew that. She'd worn that same expression all too often lately…and she knew that.

She couldn't bring herself to reach between them touch the buckle of his belt. "We can do this," she repeated faintly, breathlessly, and his hand ran lazily up and down her back.

"Yeah," Lucas said, his voice louder than she thought it would be, "We can."

His hand moved upward, gently putting enough pressure on her upper back to push her body down until it lay flat against his. She searched his eyes frantically, but before she could get any kind of answer, he was kissing her.

Everything flew away, just as it always did when their lips met. She just couldn't say no to this. No matter how wrong it was, no matter what was going on in their lives outside of each other, there was no way for her to deny this.

Because no matter how big of a person she tried to be about this, no matter how much grace she forced herself to find, this was the man that she loved, truly and for always, and it was honestly as simple as that.

She moaned into the kiss, her tongue begging for entrance to his mouth, and he granted it instantly, growling deep in his throat. His hands were everywhere, but she clung tightly to him, afraid that this was nothing more than a dream.

She was sure she'd done nothing more but blink once when all of a sudden her sweater was gone, her dress pushed up, and she was lying with her back on Lucas' bed as he kissed and sucked at her neck, murmuring words she couldn't understand.

This time when her hands hit his belt buckle, she didn't hesitate for a second, and her fingers quickly and agilely had his entire belt off and she was flinging it across the room.

He pulled her dress off just as carefully and as gently as he had the first time they'd ever had sex, in a hotel room in Honey Grove when they were in love so deeply that no one else could touch it. His lips grazed against her abdomen the same way they had in a random hotel room when grief and relief and love drove them together when he was with Brooke and she was still scared. When she arched her back, bringing her body closer to his, his hand found the clasp of her bra with the same expertise it had on the last night they'd spent together in this very bed the night before she left for Los Angeles. He paid homage to her chest with his hands and lips the same way he had on the blissful night just before graduation when they'd had sex in the backseat of her Comet, parked just off the river court with the stars shining down on them.

His body was heavy against hers in an unfamiliar way – he still wasn't exactly sober – but she really didn't mind. She relished in it, even. It made it real, made it certain; she couldn't dream up the way his warm skin felt against hers in this moment.

Her nails scratched lightly against his skin as she reached down to push his boxers off, and he murmured something playfully about impatience against her lips. She didn't say a word in reply, just smirked when he returned the gesture seconds later.

It had been way too long. Way, way too long, and she ached for him. Lindsay informed her that she, the selfish girl whose past with Lucas messed up all his later relationships, had to make a decision about Lucas? Well, _fine_. This was it.

"I need you," she gasped, nipping at his lips and staring into his eyes, that perfect shade of blue that was weighted by desire.

"You can't," he muttered, an acknowledgement of the fact that too much had happened for this to really be possible, for this to be right, as his forearms settled on either side of her head to brace himself, his fingers brushing her hair out of her face.

She nodded, coming back to her senses a bit, about to reason this out and get dressed and leave and move on and – and then he was inside of her and there were no more excuses, no more right things to do, because she did need him, and she _had_ him.

Lucas buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder. She wanted to scream and cry and gasp, but what left her mouth was a whimper, a lament for how long it had been since she'd had this, a strangled expression of pleasure, and the result of a sensory overload of _finally_.

One of her hands fell to his lower back, feeling his muscles clench under her touch, and the other cupped his chin, bringing his face back to hers so they could kiss as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Peyton," he said huskily, and her green orbs shot open again, silently asking a question. "I love you," he told her, dropping his lips back to the hinge of her jaw. "God, I love you."

Her eyes filled with tears immediately, a mix of delight and depression. "You can't," she choked out, repeating his previous words.

He looked at her again, his eyes alert and full of truth. "But I do," he assured her quietly, pressing his lips hard against hers, murmuring, "God, Peyt…come with me."

For some reason, those words tore her out of the world where she was having sex with Lucas Scott and back to the very first time she had almost done so, a random room in the huge Scott house of their childhood, and her tears spilled onto her cheeks and his teeth sunk lightly into her shoulder and she hit her climax, too, mumbling some version of the words she'd spoken to him just before the end of an era.

_It doesn't matter, with us, whether I stay or go. 'Cause I'm gonna love you forever, Lucas Scott_.

As he moved from on top of her, lying at her side and pulling her to him with a strong arm around her midsection, he lazily planted his lips of her cheeks, kissing away her tears. "What is it?" he murmured drowsily, concern lacing his tired voice.

"Nothing," she said just as quietly, wondering where the hell this left them. Probably in one of the many places they'd already been.

"Peyton," he berated her, nuzzling his nose against hers.

It all should have been stranger. She shouldn't have been so comfortable with him, so full and so happy. It all should have felt so much worse. "Just…with you," she said mutedly, meeting his eyes hesitantly. "Wanting everything with you."

He nodded, his eyes serious. "I'm sorry," he said delicately.

She tried not to let any other tears fall. "For this," she said, more of a statement than a question. A basic assumption; that he assumed this was a mistake. The man who always saved her was actually the only person who had ever hurt her heart quite this much. Sometimes she thought that he needed to save her from himself, but then again, she felt like nothing without the love and the agonizing lack of it he left her with.

Lose-lose situation. Or maybe win-win. That was one of the many things she'd never really figured out.

"No," he corrected her, and her eyes flew back to his as he tucked her messy hair out of her tearstained face. "For…everything. For us not getting everything."

"But I…I thought…" _I thought you loved Lindsay. I thought you wanted to marry someone else. I thought you..._ "You said I do to her, Lucas," she said quietly, a lump forming in her throat.

The smallest smile crossed his lips, filled with both shame and something like amusement. "She knew I was lying, didn't she? But not you. I guess I gave you reason enough for that."

She bit down hard on her lower lip. "Why did you go?" she whispered. "In L.A. _why_ did you _go_?"

He shrugged sadly. "Because I thought what you thought now. I asked you to have everything with me, and you said…" She shot him a vicious glare before he could even say 'no', so he corrected himself: "Someday. You broke my heart, Peyt."

"So you wanted to break mine back?" she demanded.

"I just wanted…to forget how much I loved you."

She stopped breathing for a moment. "And did you?"

Instead of answering, he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "Would you really take me back…after all of this? Would you really let me back in?"

She hooked a leg over his and lifted her eyebrows, trying to joke around, but her eyes remained cloaked by her worry and her sadness. "What do you _think_ I just did?"

He grinned boyishly at her, but stayed quiet for a moment.

"Luke?" she questioned, longing to know what was going on inside his head.

"Marry me," he finally said, and she balked.

"You're drunk," she said, frowning deeply.

"No."

"_Yes_," she said, shaking. He tasted like Lucas, like love, but also like liquor. There was no mistaking that.

"Okay, maybe, but Peyton –"

"You can't be saying this to me right now," she insisted.

He pulled her closer to him, and she settled her head against his chest, letting him rest his chin atop her head. She breathed him in and sighed tiredly. She was honestly ready to let sleep claim her, and to deal with this mess in the morning. If it was a morning of tears and regret and everything she didn't want it to be…then at least she would have this moment, this night.

She had just admitted defeat, letting her eyelids flutter shut, when Lucas said, "_In vino veritas_."

He was using what she used to playfully call his sexy-ass literary voice, the voice that got all deep and soulful and was merciless when it came to how she felt about him. "What's that mean?" she whispered, cuddling closer to him, wondering how many nights she had spent like this when she was seventeen, curled on his bed and thinking that she'd never love as much as she did in that moment.

"In wine, there is truth. It's Latin." He sighed, and she pressed a kiss to his chest as it rose and fell. "Maybe I needed to get really drunk in order for…this to happen."

Peyton sighed, too. "That's what my eighteen-year-old musician said."

"Mia Catalano has more talents than music, I guess."

"Yeah, well, I'm not about to put predicting the future on her resume just yet." She sighed again. "_This_ can't be, Luke. Can we really be doing this? After it all?"

"After it all," he repeated, and she could hear his smile. "I want it all, Peyton. I want it with you."

"But too much has –"

"I can remember the first time I saw you," Lucas interrupted her. "All skinny arms and a tangled mess of hair. You were a part of my life from that day, Peyton. And when I lost you, when I left you in L.A…I felt like there was a vital part of me that had been missing."

Her breath caught in her throat as he repeated her own words back to her. "And when did you find it again?" she asked.

"The night I saw you on the river court. Curly hair and skinny arms and the girl that I have always been in love with."

"Luke," she murmured, melting from his sweet words but struggling with the impossibility of them, "I…"

"Marry me," he repeated, cupping her cheek and lifting her face so that he could kiss her.

"_Luke_, I _can't_, we _can't_, it just _can't_ go back to what it was; I mean, there's a lot of…"

"Marry me," he said yet again, nudging her back into her previous position, curled up comfortably against his chest. "At least think about it. Think about the time we've lost…think about what you really want. Think about what's in your heart. For your own sake…and for me."

She closed her eyes, whispering, "God, I love you," as she kissed him, her fingers dancing lightly on his cheeks. "Okay. I'll think about it."

"That's my girl," he said tenderly, possessively, his lips buzzing as they grazed her forehead.

Her heart swelled, and Peyton could feel it pounding with hopeful excitement as she pressed her ear to his skin, searching out the beat of Lucas' heart. It took her a only moment to realize that they were perfectly in sync. It took her only a moment to realize what she'd always known.

She was now, and would always be, in love with Lucas Scott.

She didn't live in a world where things turned out perfectly, and she didn't expect this to be any kind of exception. Lucas was a mess, _she _was a mess…but if she loved him and he loved her then it would all work out. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be right. Peyton Sawyer didn't get fairytales, or anything close to them. That was just not how her universe functioned, and it never had been. She had long ago learned not to have such high expectations. Wonderful moments always came with downfalls or interruptions. It was for that reason that she wasn't entirely surprised when she woke up the next morning, stirred from her state of pure bliss not to birds chirping and soft sunlight and Lucas' kisses on her shoulder, but to Nathan Scott's voice yelling, "Holy _fuck!_" followed by his son's innocent cry of "You said a _bad _word!"

She let her eyes flutter open for a second, clutching the sheet to her chest as she eyed her ex-boyfriend standing in the doorway, one hand over Jamie's eyes and his own mouth agape. He was clearly in shock, because Nathan wasn't a big talker, and soon enough he began to ramble, "I was just…I was coming over to check on you, man, you've been kind of dark lately – nice haircut, by the way - and I really didn't expect that um…_Peyton_ would be here, and you should really start locking your doors; well, I guess I could have knocked…but I just really didn't expect…lately you've been waking up hungover and alone, not…well, with a girl, and I didn't really think…wow, my son is five, and way too young to have seen this, so we're just gonna g –"

"Nathan!" Peyton cut him off, pushing herself up into a sitting position and squinting at him, her eyes still heavy with sleep and her own disbelief at how happy she felt, a feeling she hadn't experienced first thing in the morning for a very long time. "It's _okay_," she told him firmly, hoping that he wouldn't launch back into his rant. She was unable to stop the smile that tugged her lips upward as she glanced at Lucas, who was looking at her through dark blue eyes, waiting for her to say more, as his hand gently reached out, skimming down her bare arm. She let out the smallest giggle, so girly that she normally would've been ashamed.

"It's okay," she repeated with her bright smile, the kind of smile she wore because things were happening much too fast and also not fast enough, a smile of _finally_, and she was unable to keep from squealing a little as she announced: "We're getting married."

**A/N: **I now, and always will, shamelessly beg for reviews… :)


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